Thinking about upgrading Lighting

[b4tn]

I currently run two ORt247 lights over a standard 75 mixed LPS/SPS reef. They are 5 years old and I’m thinking about upgrading. Some of my options are

Keep the OR lights and add two T5 bulbs on each side

The Reefbreeders photon 48”

Get 3 noopsyche k7’s

I am trying to stay around $700 range. I would love radions but they are out of my budget. Any recommendations?

 

[Strawberry]

I currently run two ORt247 lights over a standard 75 mixed LPS/SPS reef. They are 5 years old and I’m thinking about upgrading. Some of my options are

Keep the OR lights and add two T5 bulbs on each side

The Reefbreeders photon 48”

Get 3 noopsyche k7’s

I am trying to stay around $700 range. I would love radions but they are out of my budget. Any recommendations?

I don’t know much about the performance of the Noopsyche k7, but I just won one of these in a giveaway and I can say it’s fairly easy to set up as far as mounting bracket and user interface on the controller. I think some other people have checked them with par meters and have given them pretty good reviews as far as value for the price.

 

[King Turkey]

you could do two red sea reef led 90 and that would keep you under or around 700 I have one and I would not trade it for anything it is pretty rad.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Two of the new Hydra 32s?

 

[C. Eymann]

I currently run two ORt247 lights over a standard 75 mixed LPS/SPS reef. They are 5 years old and I’m thinking about upgrading. Some of my options are

Keep the OR lights and add two T5 bulbs on each side

The Reefbreeders photon 48”

Get 3 noopsyche k7’s

I am trying to stay around $700 range. I would love radions but they are out of my budget. Any recommendations?

I'd add the T5s to the existing set up, as long as they are being driven on a good ballast and are in a good reflector. Those T-5s +your original fixture should yield good results and be fairly cheap I'd think.

 

[b4tn]

The T5 kit I was looking at is the retrofit kit from BRS

T5 HO Miro-4 Retrofit Kit

Add to your canopy with the Miro-4 T5 High Output Retrofit Kit from LET Lighting. Retrofit kits give you the flexibility to add T5 lamps virtually to any tank, while keeping a low overall cost. T5 lighting can either be the main light source or supplemental light to another light source like LED...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

I am 100% positive that using this kit with my pre-existing OR lights will yield great results. Some of the things I dont like about my OR lights though all purely cosmetic.

- I have them on a homemade dimmer and they dont dim to off. I have to use relays to turn them off
- I hate the blunt transition from blues to whites on and off.
- Non cosmetic I would have to fab a light hood to fit the OR's and T5's which may be a pain.

Doing some more reading around If I where to go the noopsyche k7 route I would probably do 4. With the controller and brackets thats in the $800 range. Looks like they do individual channel control and Sunrise/Sunset. The controller looks like it sucks though. I am also seeing some mixed reviews on quality and support.

I found another light that I think I may be sold on but not so many reviews. My favorite lights in the hobby are the Radions and Rapid LED has some G3 clones that look very nice! The app looks very easy to use and they have individual channel control. A pair would be in the $800 range and I could still add some T5's later down the road.